http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/dec/28/golden-ratio-us-academic
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Fluxus Exhib at Ann Arbour, Michigan
INTENT ON QUESTIONING EVERYTHING
http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/umma-fluxus/
Finisterrae
Perhaps the most bizarre film I have seen yet, Sergio Caballero's FINISTERRAE is equal parts intriguing, humorous and surreal. It is a film loaded with so much symbols that you just sit back, relax, and hope that you can piece together the plot (or the lack of it) as soon as the credits roll.
The basic premise is that there are two ghosts who decide they want to become human again, and so embark on "The Way of St. James" to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, and on to Cape Finnistera (or Finnisterae), which literally means "land's end". Along the way, they consult with an oracle, meet a hippie chick, elude an unknown assailant, encounter a forest filled with trees who bear ears (literally human ears!), and even find time to go fishing. The adventure is quite funny, at times just plain absurd, but all throughout existential questions abound. Just when I thought two guys dressed in white sheets were just escaped mental patients, Caballero pushes the surrealist atmosphere further, making the trip more bizarre as it goes on.
c. http://deathoftraditionalcinema.blogspot.com/2011/12/finisterrae-sergio-caballero.html
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Nudie Cohn - Rhinestone Cowboy
Nudie Cohn was the Russian-born tailor whose designs transformed the clothing of American country music. At one time a designer of highly embellished g-strings for New York strippers, Nudie moved to Hollywood in 1947 and originated the Rhinestone cowboy look that has become visual shorthand for a particular strain of country music style. His fantastical, intricately embroidered and heavily ornamented outfits have adorned the backs of countless stars within country music as well as those from the worlds of rock n roll, film and the rodeo. They include Elvis Presley, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Hank Williams, Porter Wagoner, Gram Parsons, John Lennon, Cher, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash and Elton John. Today his work is still sought after and admired. Contemporary musicians such as Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream, Mike Mills from R.E.M. and Beck; fashion photographers including Craig McDean; and fashion designers from Tommy Hilfiger to Giles Deacon have been inspired by his incredible designs.
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Art as Social Activism
“Art as social practice,” that’s the phrase that is often used to characterize a socially conscious form of creative expression that seeks to engage the artist and art work in humanitarian struggle.
You could say it is a predictable aesthetic resolution of a world that has devalued value, that suspects concepts of truth and beauty, that fears work being co-opted into propaganda or that asserts suppositions of cultural dominance or ideological superiority. It is the striving for art that is useful, to participate in social and political struggle, to quit making things that just stand around and create something that actually does something.
Get familiar with the concept; this isn’t the last you’ll hear of it in Dallas. It was the underlining theme of Creative Time’s visits to Dallas and the April symposium that was the culmination of that process. It is also a vision of art that Southern Methodist University’s art school is eagerly pursuing as a potentially defining characteristic. Coffee shop chatter suggests the possibility of the school moving their art department off the refined, faux-Georgian confines of its Park Cities campus and into one of Dallas’ more economically challenged neighborhoods. The school wants to roll up its sleeves and get into the thick of things.
Some of the cast of characters in town in April for SMU’s symposium – Creative Time, Project Row House’s Rick Lowe, the Queens Museum – make appearances in this ArtNews article about the movement. From the article:
One way or another, artists have acted as activists for centuries. But it seems that more and more artists around the world are devising projects that harness their creative sensibilities—and, significantly, their international profiles—to both raise awareness and improve living conditions. Brooklyn-based Swoon, for example, helped build a community center and shelters in Haiti. Vik Muniz advocates for Brazil’s garbage pickers. Most famously—and ominously—Ai Weiwei criticized shoddy construction in schools in China’s earthquake zones, along with other government policies, resulting in his detention last April.
Closer to home, curators Leila Grothe and Cynthia Mulcahy are organizing a community engaging project in South Dallas — a square dance at the Trinity River Audubon Center — that will be funded through grants from the Idea Fund and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
However, as the Ai Weiwei incident illustrated, the art world’s boisterous engagement of political activism comes with its own set of tough questions. Petitions were created to voice artists’ objections to China’s treatment of the WeiWei, yet while both artists and museum directors were vocal, other tougher measures remained off the table:
The prospect of more tangible measures—sanctions or a boycott—was regarded by several museum directors I spoke to as beyond the bounds of feasibility, given the realities of traveling exhibitions and loans, among other cultural, political, and financial entanglements.
But that doesn’t mean tougher measures won’t soon be part of the regular modus operandi of the activated art world, Creative Time chief curator Nato Thompson tells ArtNews. One petition that is currently circulating among artists demands regulation of labor conditions for migrant workers at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi with the threat of eventual boycott. And before we dismiss these kinds of tactics, Thompson is quick – like everyone else these days – to point to the effectiveness of social networking activists in Tunisia and Egypt:
“These are new equations. Artists are finding they can organize and have power in a way they didn’t used to,” he notes. “They’re finding ways their community can demand ethical behavior.”
Surely, artist can demand ethical behavior. Artists, like everyone else, can demand whatever they want to demand. But the jury is still out on the more vital questions:
Are the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi’s conditions worse than those at other museums around the developing world? Will a boycott sever lines of communication with foreign institutions? Are there times when the solutions can become part of the problem? Can the art world really influence China’s human-rights policy?
c. Peter Simmek- FrontRow, Dallas
You could say it is a predictable aesthetic resolution of a world that has devalued value, that suspects concepts of truth and beauty, that fears work being co-opted into propaganda or that asserts suppositions of cultural dominance or ideological superiority. It is the striving for art that is useful, to participate in social and political struggle, to quit making things that just stand around and create something that actually does something.
Get familiar with the concept; this isn’t the last you’ll hear of it in Dallas. It was the underlining theme of Creative Time’s visits to Dallas and the April symposium that was the culmination of that process. It is also a vision of art that Southern Methodist University’s art school is eagerly pursuing as a potentially defining characteristic. Coffee shop chatter suggests the possibility of the school moving their art department off the refined, faux-Georgian confines of its Park Cities campus and into one of Dallas’ more economically challenged neighborhoods. The school wants to roll up its sleeves and get into the thick of things.
Some of the cast of characters in town in April for SMU’s symposium – Creative Time, Project Row House’s Rick Lowe, the Queens Museum – make appearances in this ArtNews article about the movement. From the article:
One way or another, artists have acted as activists for centuries. But it seems that more and more artists around the world are devising projects that harness their creative sensibilities—and, significantly, their international profiles—to both raise awareness and improve living conditions. Brooklyn-based Swoon, for example, helped build a community center and shelters in Haiti. Vik Muniz advocates for Brazil’s garbage pickers. Most famously—and ominously—Ai Weiwei criticized shoddy construction in schools in China’s earthquake zones, along with other government policies, resulting in his detention last April.
Closer to home, curators Leila Grothe and Cynthia Mulcahy are organizing a community engaging project in South Dallas — a square dance at the Trinity River Audubon Center — that will be funded through grants from the Idea Fund and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
However, as the Ai Weiwei incident illustrated, the art world’s boisterous engagement of political activism comes with its own set of tough questions. Petitions were created to voice artists’ objections to China’s treatment of the WeiWei, yet while both artists and museum directors were vocal, other tougher measures remained off the table:
The prospect of more tangible measures—sanctions or a boycott—was regarded by several museum directors I spoke to as beyond the bounds of feasibility, given the realities of traveling exhibitions and loans, among other cultural, political, and financial entanglements.
But that doesn’t mean tougher measures won’t soon be part of the regular modus operandi of the activated art world, Creative Time chief curator Nato Thompson tells ArtNews. One petition that is currently circulating among artists demands regulation of labor conditions for migrant workers at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi with the threat of eventual boycott. And before we dismiss these kinds of tactics, Thompson is quick – like everyone else these days – to point to the effectiveness of social networking activists in Tunisia and Egypt:
“These are new equations. Artists are finding they can organize and have power in a way they didn’t used to,” he notes. “They’re finding ways their community can demand ethical behavior.”
Surely, artist can demand ethical behavior. Artists, like everyone else, can demand whatever they want to demand. But the jury is still out on the more vital questions:
Are the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi’s conditions worse than those at other museums around the developing world? Will a boycott sever lines of communication with foreign institutions? Are there times when the solutions can become part of the problem? Can the art world really influence China’s human-rights policy?
c. Peter Simmek- FrontRow, Dallas
Mathew Derbyshire T Rooms at Tramway
I enjoy the doll's house-esque quality of this show and the use of pattern and architectural styles mixed up and basterdised to create a new and confusing approach to architectural representation.
However, on a conceptual level I can't say that I completely disagree with many points made in this rather scathing review. I also have a problem with art that deals with important social issues with an approach that comes from a very particular social perspective on what is right for 'society'. Perhaps if the artist was from the city his take on it's architecture might be an easier pill to swallow but as it is, the comment does some across as rather hollow.
Still, many of the aesthetics appeal to me and this is why I have included the show here.
http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/scotland/visual_art_review_matthew_darbyshire_t_rooms_tramway_glasgow_1_2125210
Friday, 24 February 2012
Ibsen- The Dolls House
A Doll's House (Norwegian: Et dukkehjem; also translated as A Doll House) is a three-act play in prose by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.[1] It premièred at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month.[2]
The play was controversial when first published, as it is sharply critical of 19th century marriage norms.[3] Michael Meyer argues that the play's theme is not women's rights, but rather "the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person."[4] In a speech given to the Norwegian Women's Rights League in 1898, Ibsen insisted that he "must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women's rights movement," since he wrote "without any conscious thought of making propaganda," his task having been "the description of humanity."[5] The Swedish playwright August Strindberg attacked the play in his volume of short stories Getting Married (1884).[6]
UNESCO inscribed Ibsen's autographed manuscripts of A Doll's House on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, in recognition of their historical value.[7]
Wikipedia
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